Category: Groups 2021

Country: Kamchatka region Russian Federation

Director: Dolgan Elizaveta

The Koryak folklore dance ensemble ‘Angt’ (in Koryak language ‘Holiday’) was organised in 2001 as an amateur group at the behest of the Koryak Regional Centre of Folk Art.

The repertoire includes dances, songs and rituals of the indigenous people of Kamchatka and the Koryak District: Koryaks, Itelmens, Evens, Chukchi.

The main backbone of the collective consists of former dancers of the ‘Mengo’ ensemble and the best graduates of the National Choreography Department of Palana College. The dignity of I.I. Zhukov is that his team is a real professional base for young people.

Currently, the ensemble is constantly touring the Kamchatka Territory, taking part in all events in Palana, is a continual participant in the regional festival ‘Golden Springs’, and the only annual nomadic festival in Russia, ‘Alluring Worlds, Ethnic Russia’, as well as in other cultural events in Russia and abroad.

Awards:

1. Grand Prix of the Festival of Northern Peoples of Russia – ‘Merry Holiday’ in 2005
2. Laureate and 1st place winner for High Technique and Best Choreography at the International Festival in Italy in 2007
3. Laureate of the All-Russian festival ‘Round Dance of Folklore’, held on Poklonnaya Gora, Moscow in 2010
4. Laureate of the IV International Festival ‘Russian Round Dance of Folklore’, Suzdal 2010
5. Winner of the medal ‘Laureate of the All-Russian Exhibition Centre’, Moscow 2007

Media channels:

Instagram: www.instagram.com/angt_kamchatka

Website: http://ансамбль-ангт.рф

Participation: in the virtual competition of the festival

Country: Albania 

Director: Blerta Balliu

The ‘Skendërbeg’ ensemble has been around for 46 years. It has members from 6 to 60 years old and has performed in more than 15 countries around the world. It is the official folk group of the Korca city and represents all its culture. The ‘Skendërbeg’ ensemble is one of the most prestigious folk groups in Albania. This ensemble has given the Albanian culture a legacy of many great performers.

Awards:

1. Participation in festivals in Turkey
2. Participation in festivals in Italy
3. Participation in festivals in France
4. Honoured guests at Balkan Spirit Festival
5. Honoured guests at Skopje Fest

Media channels:

Facebook: Ansambli “Skenderbeu” Korca-Albania

Instagram: Ansambli Skenderbeu

Participation: in the solo/couple competition of the festival

Country: Portugal

Director: Ricardo Casebre

FIFCA Portugal Folk Dance Group, represents a period in Ribatejo’s history situated in 1925-1935 and is characterised by dominant agriculture with lots of work-force, especially with women. The group picked up its origins on one of the biggest rivers of the Iberian Peninsula, the river Tejo, and from the river fishermen. Some of the dances and costumes are still included in the actual folk group. Presently, the group represents the labour on the fields, with costumes from the bulls keeper with their horses as well, as at the river during the first fifty years of the 20th century. It has got a repertoire of 42 dances representing ethnographic pictures of Almeirim Villages, traditions, and preserves the popular culture.

Awards:

1.   First Prize for Special Dance Hanioti – Greece, 2017
2.   Special Prize of The Jury for the Best Stage Performance on the Basis of Ethnic Choreography – Interfolk Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2019
3.   First Prize for Special Dance – Interfolk Saint Petersburg Russia, 2019

Media channels:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FIFCAFolkDanceGroupPortugal

Participation: in the solo/couple competition of the festival.

Country: Singapore

Director: Mdm Som Said

Sri Warisan is a performing arts company founded in 1997. Blending rich traditional forms with contemporary techniques is Sri Warisan’s trademark. Its performers are trained to excel in multi-disciplinary art forms such as dance, music, theatre and multi-media.

Every year Sri Warisan performs at more than 200 local events and 10 overseas festivals. The instructors conduct more than 3,000 courses and workshops at schools.

Since 1997, Sri Warisan has participated in more than 150 international events and festivals in more than 100 cities in 40 countries such as Belgium, Bulgaria, Brunei, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Great Britain, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey and United States of America.

Awards:

1. National Heritage Board’s Stewards of Intangible Cultural Heritage Award

Medial channels:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sriwarisan

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sriwarisan

Website: www.sriwarisan.com

Participation: in the virtual competition of the festival

Country: Spain

Director: Charo Rabadán

The Choir and Dance Group ‘Francisco de Goya’ began its journey in 1950 and was founded as an Association in 1973 with the aim of keeping alive the folk art, and to perpetuate the traditions and customs. The extensive repertoire of the group includes dances from different parts of Spain (Andalusia, Aragon, Castile, Extremadura), but their main objective is the study and interpretation of goyesque dances and the dances of the Bolero School, which achieved great popularity, especially in Madrid, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Media channels:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grupo.franciscodegoya

Instagram: https://instagram.com/franciscodegoyacyd

Website: www.franciscodegoya.org

Participation: in the solo/couple competition of the festival.

Country: Italy

Director: Nino Lauretta

The ‘Akragas Folk Dance Group’ was founded by a group of young people, keen on popular traditions, with the mandate of researching, spreading and staging the folkloristic, historic and cultural traditions of the Sicilian people.  The costumes worn by the group members represent a well-defined historical period that is the end of the nineteenth century. The musical instruments, the songs, the dances, and the stagings instead embrace a greater historical period which includes the Greek, Roman, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish and Norman dominations of the island, all of which have moulded Sicily throughout the centuries.

Awards:

• 2nd place for dance; 3rd place for costumes – X World Folk Festival, 2003, SPAIN, Palma of Mallorca
• 3rd place for dance – XII World Folk Festival, 2007, Spain, Palma de Mallorca
• 3rd place – Duna Karnaval, 2010, HUNGARY, Budapest

Media channels:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/akragasfolkdancegroup/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/akragas_folk_dance_group/

Website:  https://akragasfolkdancegroup.com/

Participation: in the solo/couple competition of the festival.

Country: Czech Republic

Director: Jakub Svorba

The ensemble was established in 1942. Its main activities are searching for and reviving old-time forgotten customs, songs and dances.

Thanks to the ensemble’s activities, Kyjov, a city with 13,000 inhabitants, continues to maintain traditional seasonal festivities, as well as the oldest folk festival in the Czech Republic – The Moravian Year (since 1921). The ensemble has shown their art and flamboyant folk costumes to audiences all over their country, European countries, and as far away as America and Asia.

 Awards:

1. Guy Laundry, president of CIOFF, recognition – Montreal, 1994
2. President of CIOFF Japan Award – Tokyo, 1998
3. Official Recognition of Garden Festival Wales under patronage of Prince and Princess of Wales – Great Britain, 1992
4. International Festival Program Award (Walt Disney World) – Florida, 1994
5. International festival representation: Austria, Romania, Poland, Taiwan

Media channels:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/slovackysoubor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slovackysoubor/

Website: http://www.slovackysoubor.cz/en/

Participation: in the solo/couple competition of the festival.

Country: Chile

Director: John Sigisfredo Peña Caniuñir

On March 20, 1999 in the Araucanía region of southern Chile, the ‘BALLET FOLCLÓRICO MUNICIPAL DE CARAHUE – BAFCA®’ was born, as a concern and initiative of the Illustrious Municipality of Carahue, to rescue, promote and disseminate customs and traditions of CHILE and Latin America through a choreographic-musical language.

BAFCA is made up of approximately 50 people, including managers, technicians and their two casts (Musical and Dance).

In its history, the company has been enjoyed by a large audience throughout Chile, as well as in foreign circuits (Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, China and Turkey) representing the country in more than 40 International Festivals. Currently, this cast has 17 musical-choreographic pieces that include almost all Chilean and Latin American geographic areas.

Awards:

1. First Place in the INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL “LES SACRES DU FOLKLORE DE REIMS”, FRANCE- Category musical diversity
2. Second Place in the XIX International Buyukçekmece Festival in Turkey, 2018

Media channels:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bafcacarahue

Instagram: bafca_carahue_chile

Website: http://carahue.cl/wp/bafca/

Participation: in the virtual competition of the festival

Country: Brazil

Director: Domingas Leonor da Silva

Flor Ribeirinha works with the rescue, maintenance, protection and diffusion of popular culture, in particular Siriri and Cururu, as well as with other forms of expression of Brazilian popular culture. Born in the city of Cuiabá in the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil in 1933, in a riverside and historical community called São Gonçalo Beiro Rio, where the traditions of the feasts of saints, production of clay pottery, and typical foods and drinks are preserved. It was founded by the popular culture master Dona Domingas Leonor da Silva.

Since 2010, the Flor Ribeirinha group has been touring some countries of the American continent such as Peru, Paraguay and Argentina. In partnership with the Brazilian Federation of Popular Arts – ‘FEBRARP BRASIL’ the group took bigger flights, starting its participation in major international folklore festivals in Europe and Asia, covering France, Switzerland, Italy and South Korea. In 2017, the group participated in the world’s largest Art and Culture competition, the ‘18th Festival Buyukçekmece’ in Turkey, featuring the show CUIABÁ DANCING BRAZIL. In 2019, the group represented Brazilian culture in one of the biggest, cultural events: the arrival of the new year in China, presenting itself to millions of people.

Awards:

1. 1st Prize Golden Bridge Competition in Büyukçekmece, Turkey, 2017
2. 2nd Prize Cheonan World Dance Festival, South Korea, 2016
3. Culturas Populares (Folk Art Award) by Ministry of Culture of Brazil, 2019
4. Three times Champion of the Siriri Festival, provincial dance festival of the State of Mato Grosso, Brazil

Media channels:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/florribeirinhaoficial/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/florribeirinha/

Website: www.florribeirinha.com.br

Participation: in the virtual competition of the festival

Country: Mexico

Director: Lidia Leticia Osornio Manzano

Ballet Folklórico Tzontémoc is founded in 1968 in the current National School of Teachers under the ideas of professors Jorge Gutiérrez Escoto and Aurora Rodríguez Quezada.

Its primary objective has been transformed to provide future teachers with а perspective that strengthens the required cultural background through programs full of creativity and fantasy.

The group has participated in different international festivals in countries like Canada, USA, France, Greece, Guatemala, Poland and Ukraine. In July 2018 has participated in 6 festivals in the European Union, visiting countries such as Serbia, Bosnia and Bulgaria.

Awards:

1. 6 International Folk Dance & Music Festival 2018. 1st place. Belgrade, Serbia.
2. XX Międzynarodowego Festiwalu Folkloru w Nowej Rudzie, Polska, 2012. Participation.
3. XIII International Festival ‘Polesian Summer with Folklore’, lutsk Ukraine, 2012.

Media channels:

Facebook: ballet folklórico tzontemoc

Instagram: @balletfolkloricotzontemoc

Participation: in the solo/couple and the virtual competition of the festival.